If our age could have a patron saint, I would like to nominate Captain Renault, Claude Rains character in Casablanca. In his famous scene, Claude Rains, playing the role of Captain Louis Renault, jokingly suggested that gambling in the local Rick’s Café nightclub astonished him. In truth, Renault is fully in the know, corrupt and on the take. This seems to be the role that the media and many politicians seem to want to play during this presidency. While the idea that a twenty-four-hour media would not create a twenty-four-hour news cycle may still be news to some, it seems as though we can’t imagine that a reality star in the presidency would use the media as a reality star would- a tool to promote themselves and their brand. With the creation of a 24-hour news media, why should we be shocked when someone tweets at 5 in the morning? We have created a media wave yet ridicule people who surf it. (Please understand- I am speaking of the use of the media- not the content) I am reminded of the film “Frost/Nixon” Where David Frost, on hearing Nixon resigned was angered not by the act but that he had done it in the morning in the East coast while the major media on the west coast was still asleep and could not cover the event live. How could he pull off the greatest media stunt of his time while much of the country was not awake to see it? Frost knew the power of media and knew how to use it to his own advantage. Now we have the children of the media using these tools in their own playground. If the brand is what we value, why not use all the tools to increase its worth, I mean, you go to the zoo- expect to see the monkeys.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what year it was, but one new years day I woke about 2 in the afternoon realizing that someone had been using my head as a gong and had knitted tiny booties for each of my teeth. The only reason that I woke up is that somewhere someone had turned on some music to greet the new year, playing the Bob Marley song, “Three Little Birds”. Those unfamiliar with the song should know the refrain goes, “Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is going to be alright” While that was small solace to me at that moment, it seemed to sink into my memory and become a touchstone for the entire year, an island of hope which I often returned to. Listening to the news in the past few days reminded me of that song summoning me from a stupor and giving me hope. These days it seems like newscasters seem to be falling over themselves to tell us how the world is coming to an end. Not that there are not serious things going on in the world, it seems that each new media brings with it a new form of creative destruction. While the printing press brought the newly printed bible to the masses, it also created the Reformation; television brought the world into our homes allowing us to see racial segregation, carpet bombing and a Viet Cong officer during the Tet Offensive as well as Bernstein s Omnibus and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those of us who remember our philosophy classes in college and Hegel may remember the dialectic, how each thing creates its opposite or what Taoist philosophers call Self-Manifestation through Contraries. While this process can be destructive, perhaps the only way to face this disruptive innovation is to think of the hopeful words of Bob Marley or these days a better choice may be the coping suggestion here from Bette Middler. Perhaps if we don’t face the music and dance, at least we can laugh.